Putting Yourself In Your Customers’ Shoes

At Rackspace, we live and breathe service and Fanatical Support[1]. We make no bones about it. It’s the lifeblood that powers everything we do. And at the center are our customers, who we aim to delight every minute of every day.

So we get really pumped when we see our customers take this path with their own customers. Rackspace Cloud customer MindSnacks[2] is doing just that, putting its customers on a pedestal and working to see things through its customers’ eyes.

In a recent GigaOm post and video, MindSnacks CEO and Co-Founder Jesse Pickard discusses the importance of walking in a customer’s shoes[3] and how empathy is a trait often overlooked in the customer relationship.

“I think empathy is an underrated skill set for an entrepreneur and I think it’s very important to be able to quickly step into different types of people’s shoes and see the world as they see it,” Pickard says in the video. “And I think this helps not only with product design, but if you’re pitching to investors or if you’re managing people. I think it’s something that’s really critical.”

MindSnacks, a roughly two-year-old startup, is a platform of language-learning games designed for touch screen devices.

Pickard said his knack for empathy and his ability to see things from the customer’s perspective were influenced by his being the son of a psychiatrist and small business owner.

Pickard urges CEOs to “shut up and listen” and “put down your phone” and see how customers are reacting.

We’re thrilled to see MindSnacks drilling down into the customer relationship and trumpeting the importance of empathy, and we admire the company for taking a Fanatical approach to seeing things from a customer’s perspective.

Are you a Rackspace customer with a unique story to tell? Contact me[4] or leave a comment here. We’d love to share your story on the Rackspace Blog.